The Dan David award scheme was founded by a Romanian-born philanthropist, with an annual purse of US$3 million for outstanding early- and mid-career scholars.
The Ghanaian art historian and film-maker Nana Ofosuaa Oforiatta Ayim has hit another milestone on the global stage after winning the world’s biggest history prize.
The Dan David Prize was founded in 2000 by the Romanian-born philanthropist of the same name. With an annual purse of US$3 million, it recognises outstanding early- and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines.
Since its inception, the award has been won by outstanding thinkers such as the environmental advocate Al Gore; the leader of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie Bunch; the film-makers the Coen Brothers; the novelist Jamaica Kincaid; the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmie Wales; the theatre director Peter Brook; the playwright Tom Stoppard and the musician Yo-Yo Ma.
Nana Ofosuaa Oforiatta Ayim becomes the first Ghanaian to win the award.
Appearing on al Jazeera, Oforiatta Ayim discussed the consequences of centuries of colonialism with Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021. Originally from Tanzania, Gurnah’s fiction reflects the ethnic diversity of East Africa, exploring subjects such as migration and cultural uprooting.
For her written work, Oforiatta Ayim has developed what critics describe as a new language to talk about African art that does not replicate Western concepts, pioneering a pan-African cultural encyclopaedia and a mobile museums project in Ghana.
Although they have different perspectives, both Gurnah and Ayim create work that questions simple narratives and structures built on imperial models.
They explore how to remember a past deliberately eclipsed and erased by colonialism
